A Texas man escaped his handcuffs, climbed into the front seat, and drove off in a cop car with an officer inside last weekend. Of course, much of it was caught on video.
According to the Dallas Police Department, following a traffic stop at approximately 5:35 p.m., officers detained a 37-year-old male and charged him with three crimes, including driving with an invalid license and unlawful possession of a firearm. Unfortunately, after police placed the suspect in the car, he temporarily hijacked it after slipping his shackles.
As seen in a video of the attempted escape, the suspect managed to free his left hand from his restraints and hide it from the police officers. He then unbuckled his seatbelt and tried to open the car’s locked rear door as the officers began driving to the jail.
When officers stopped the police car, the suspect made his move
When the officers saw what was happening, they immediately stopped the car to address the situation. However, the suspect quickly moved to the driver’s seat and drove off, fighting off an officer who attempted to get at him through the driver’s side door. Before the suspect drove off, one officer was able to get into the back seat.
According Fox 4 News, the suspect took off and began driving erratically up to fifty miles per hour, throwing the officer around the backseat of the cruiser.
After using his taser, the officer in the car struck the suspect in the side of the head with his gun. Eventually, he unlocked the car’s driver-side door, leaped out of the vehicle, and was knocked unconscious. While that was happening, the officer managed to take back control of the car and prevent a crash.
Authorities transported both the officer and the suspect to the hospital for medical attention. The suspect will face additional charges of unauthorized use of a vehicle and escape from custody once he is released from the hospital.
This is far from the first time someone has escaped their handcuffs and took off in a police car
In 2020, police arrested a woman in High Springs, Florida, on charges of stalking. When officers handcuffed the woman’s hands behind her back and placed her in the back seat of a patrol car alone, she somehow got out of her cuffs, climbed through the partition in the vehicle to the front seat, started the car and drove away.
Police used GPS tracking to follow the police car after the woman rammed it into the automatic gate at the station and left the county. After following her with a helicopter, police caught her, again, and charged her with fleeing police, resisting an officer, grand theft of a vehicle, stalking and criminal mischief.
Someone escaping their cuffs and stealing a police car has also happened and made news before in Texas. Watch as a woman performed the same feat in Lufkin,Texas, in 2017.